The Planets Nu API: This Is Space War

If space-squads, emperors, dungeon-masters, planets, starships and space wars are your thing, you've probably heard of VGA Planets. It's a popular play by email, space strategy game created in 1991, and Planets Nu is the online browser based version launched in 2011. Planets Nu now provides the Planets Nu API, which is good news for developers who want to programmatically access the game's functionality.

The graphical, multi-layer war game simulates a battle in space between galactic empires, focussing on the construction of starships, colonisation and mining. There are usually 11 players in a game, and each player begins with a planet, a starbase and two ships. Once all players have played their turn, the host programme calculates the results and scores of all of the players' actions. Planets has been compared to an 11 player chess game, as each player moves their 'pieces' one turn at a time.

The Planets Nu API responses are JSON formatted and calls are supported to login, list games, load game information, load turn data and more. Some calls require an API key, and developers who want to make use of the data can find more information on the VGA Planets website.